The Southern Conference men’s soccer standings are a mess, and the Elon men’s soccer team hasn’t contributed to solving the log jam at the top.

“The Southern Conference standings are really interesting right now because it doesn’t look like standings, but it looks more like a countdown,” said Elon coach Darren Powell.

The Phoenix, which sits with six points through three games in conference play, are 2-1 in conference with victories against Appalachian State and Georgia Southern — two of the bottom three teams in the conference. Elon’s conference loss came last Saturday at Wofford, which leads the conference with nine points entering play today.

Wofford was the team Elon met in the 2012 Southern Conference Tournament final when the Phoenix needed to come from behind to win. With the loss to the Terriers last week, the urgency to finish the final three conference games strong has kicked in, starting with a matchup between ranked opponents when the No. 25 Phoenix visits No. 22 Furman tonight in Greenville, S.C.

“It’s very tight. We spoke at the beginning of the year about how precious points are and this is no different,” Powell said. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s Furman against Elon or name two more teams in the conference. They’re all massive games for every team.”

In the setback against Wofford, the Phoenix battled the Terriers to overtime but ultimately suffered the loss in giving up two goals, something the Phoenix isn’t accustomed to doing.

In 13 games, Elon has allowed 0.69 goals per game, allowing just nine goals all year.

“Our defense and Nathan (Dean) in goal has been fantastic all season,” said senior midfielder Matt Wescoe. “I don’t think we did anything different against Wofford. We just gave up two goals. It’s going to happen.”

On the flip side, Elon is averaging a goal per game better, scoring 1.69 goals per game this season having put 22 behind opposing goalkeepers.

While the Phoenix only scored once Tuesday night against Georgia Southern, Wescoe believed it could’ve been more. The lone goal from the midfielder was enough to get the Phoenix past the Eagles.

“We bounced back very strong against Georgia Southern,” Wescoe said. “We put in a good 90-minute performance and keep the clean sheet. We scored one goal but we should’ve had more, in our opinion, but one was enough and we got the win so it was a good bounce back.”

In the bounce-back effort, Powell liked what he saw from the Phoenix from the opening whistle.

“As a staff, we were very pleased with the way we started the game,” Powell said. “We started on the front foot and created a lot of opportunities early. Unfortunately, we didn’t capitalize on those, but we got the goal after some time. When we did, we still kept fighting on the front foot and creating a lot of chances. Georgia Southern made it difficult in the last part of the game, which was to be expected, but we did a good job keeping our composure.”

Page 2 of 2 - Against Furman, the Phoenix will look to continue attacking the face of goal like it has in recent games. Against Wofford and Georgia Southern, Elon took 35 shots, landing 14 of them on goal.

Powell also recognized the importance of keeping solid defensive shape from the start.

“It’s going to be very important that we’re defensively sound and we get ourselves organized,” Powell said. “The other side of it is figuring out how we’re going to create chances against Furman, which is what we’ve worked on all week. When we get those chances, we have to make sure we convert them.”

Furman enters the game riding high off a 2-1 road victory against No. 9 Clemson on Tuesday.

The Paladins hold an 8-5-2 lead in the all-time series with Elon, including a 5-1-1 advantage in games at Stone Stadium in Greenville. The Phoenix have won the last two matchups between the two.

“We realize the magnitude of this game. It’s vitally important for the SoCon table and for RPI points in general, so it’s big for our two goals of winning the SoCon and also making the NCAA Tournament,” said junior forward Jason Waterman. “We dropped the points at Wofford so that makes our margin of error small. We’re really concerned about just putting out a good performance and hopefully coming out with a ‘W.’ ”